A Snowy Prison
by Maelinis
Summary: Read the records of a Minecraftian, whose name they did not wish to add, as they venture out into a world of snow. Snow, year round, every other day, coming down in quiet flakes and blotting out the stars, in the world where this Minecraftian is imprisoned within, with nothing but animals for company. A lone world, a widespread jail—a snowy prison... Rated T just in case.


Once, I spawned in a world of snow...

Snow, as far as the eye could see, stretched out into the horizon, blindingly white as the sun's light reflected off of its surface...

I was alone here, free to do whatever I wanted...

But I wasn't here by choice.

They put me here. They said that I wouldn't be here forever. They said I would enjoy it...

I couldn't refuse.

How could I?

They controlled me. They controlled my every move. If they told me to slave day and night to build a castle despite the onslaught of creepers they sent at me, I would do it. If I was ordered to find them a village, I would run across the map until I found one.

I don't know why I never just stopped and said no.

I just couldn't.

I had an ever-gnawing desire to please them. To do what they told me to do.

I couldn't stop following their orders. Like a slave. A highly favored slave, with a decent life. An obedient slave, a slave that was glad of being one.

Somewhat.

Because of this, I didn't always die at the hands of zombies.

I wasn't always dying at the cruel mercy of others, other slaves, just like me. Controlled by their own masters, their own mistresses. Those that killed often, were corrupted, glad to be allowed to kill, hating their masters when they are restrained. And those that hardly killed, well, they were like innocent angels.

But I, I couldn't kill. My master wasn't the best at it. So I wasn't corrupted. I hated having to kill others, since I wasn't good at it. Since we, my master and I, weren't good at it. We were often defeated. A cruel, flaming death, or a painful, chopped up one. It didn't matter which.

I was never a corrupt.

I am still pure.

One of the angels who couldn't kill because they were simply bad at it, and that made us pure.

Pure of spirit, pure of heart. And although they controlled us, watching the Screen they hid behind as we did our work, we were angels. We were their servants. And in turn, they tried their best to keep us safe.

They controlled us, along with those who watched and assured us that we might not be in a game of life and death. Maybe, we were in a magical resurrection of reality. Maybe, we had been dead or dying all along, and when we wake, we will disappear forever.

So I, a servant of a being perhaps greater than myself, was sent to this world, a world where there was snow everywhere.

A world that snowed every season of the year.

A world that must have been freezing cold all the time, where I couldn't feel the temperature.

And they gave me the power to pluck the things I needed or wanted out of nowhere. And told me to build whatever I wished, as long as it adhered to what they wanted to see.

I wasn't sure what my master particularly wanted, but I knew that we both liked horses. So I closed my eyes for a moment, and then conjured up a spawn egg.

Not just any spawn egg...but the spawn egg that enabled me to spawn horses.

_Maybe this place won't be so barren and horrible if I can own horses,_ I thought hopefully.

_Maybe this place isn't such a bad place to be imprisoned in...,_ I continued to myself.

And so, I swung my arm, with as much force as I could muster, and hoped for the spawn egg to work its magic.

I was in luck.

A rearing gray stallion with white spots and dark stocking markings materialized out of thin air. He whinnied, a wild, piercing sound in this white emptiness. I created a golden apple, the special food needed in order to tame horses faster and more effectively, and gave it to him, letting him take it from me.

Then I summoned a saddle, and began the process of taming him.

On the first try, he kicked me off.

I was expecting his kick, so I landed on my feet.

On the second try, I was able to tame him.

He stopped fighting my attempts at controlling him and stood there, patiently, as I placed the saddle upon his back. He was now mine. Mine and my master's, who was undoubtedly watching my movements behind the cover of the Screen.

Why do I call it the Screen? Because that's...that's technically what it is...

I leaped onto my new horse's back, and made him rear up. I had no sword to flash triumphantly at my watching master at the moment, but that didn't matter.

I jerked on the reins to face north, and then I kicked my horse into a gallop. He was quite fast, I think, but it was hard to tell how fast he was going at, because the snow blended together until it was just a meaningless expanse of white.

I rode on for another minute, as if trying to run from my master, before reining in my horse. We slowed down to a trot, and then to a walk, before stopping completely. I paused and watched as the stars passed by overhead, for it was now night, and then I heard it.

It was a silent command, more like an urge.

And that command told me to build a huge stable.

The kind of building that you kept horses in.

_Since you have a horse,_ it urged me,_ you shall build a stable. You can tame more horses, build yet another horse training complex. And it will be yours, all yours..._

I didn't mind that command. I was used to such things. Although they never really helped me survive in battles against others just like me, they were kind enough. They gave me a purpose in these otherwise barren worlds, devoid of any life forms besides mine and that of the mobs who'd spawned there. The latter of which, there were none.

I surveyed the ground before me, and made a fence post out of nowhere and placed it on the ground. Then I pulled a lead out of thin air and tied my horse to it.

_Now_, I thought, _he won't run away..._

With my fence post, I started building 3x1x3 slots large enough for a horse and rider to get into, but still small enough to save quite a lot of space. While I was building, a small part of my subconsciousness yelled, _"Horse abuse!"_ but I ignored it. What harm could befall us pixel beings anyway?

As I built the first few stalls, I pondered on what to use as roofing—and later, flooring—for this first floor.

I paused in my work, and as I did so, a command came: _Use light blue glass._

So I waved my hand, and beheld a shining cube of glass in my hand, the same hue as the sky. It looked a lot like ice, but more transparent, and definitely wouldn't melt.

I slapped block after block of light blue glass atop the 3 block high fences I'd created. If horses were to live here, it'd be literally a horse prison for them. Just like my prison, this world of endless snow...

I shook the thoughts out from my head and instead concentrated on building. _Clip. Thump. Thump. Thump. Clip. Thump. Thump. Thump._

Those were the only sounds I heard in this barren wilderness, besides the snorts and stomping sounds of my gray stallion, as I flew 3 blocks off above the ground, building a prison for horses.

Occasionally, I was able to take rests, while my master went to do something else.

I hate to admit it, but I did try to break my master's control over me. I really did. Sometimes.

My master's control over me was like a thick, stretchy rope, like the lead that prevented my horse from wandering off. Sometimes, when I closed my eyes and opened my "inner eye" to see things that otherwise, I wouldn't see. And that's how I saw the bond.

I tried to imagine myself cutting the rope with a diamond sword, but the stretchiness of the rope only caused it to bend and my sword arm to ricochet off to the side.

I tried burning it with an imagined torch, but it didn't catch fire.

I also tried stepping on it, but of course, it was slippery and strangely textured and I fell off.

_This bondage is very strange...,_ I thought to myself as my master commanded me to continue work. _It's like a piece of rubber, yet it's unbreakable..._

Strange as it was, I'd often attempted to break the bond before, but it was always impossible. After attempting, I would always tell myself, _"This is for the greater good, it'll set me free."_

But of course, those were only words.

What would happen if I broke the bond?

Would I disappear?

Would I get wiped off of the map? Wiped from the face of the world?

Maybe I would get erased from every record of me that ever existed...

Would I be trapped in whichever world I was in while I broke the bond? And would I survive in this world until I died at the hands of the great Minecraftian gods? And if I should die, would I never be able to respawn again? Perhaps my body would be destroyed by zombies? Or perhaps I would become a corrupt in a different way...

Would I become a god in my own land? With the ability to create and destroy anything I wished at a simple command, a wave of my hand? To create a cavalry with my horses at a simple push of thought?

No, I would most likely vanish the moment I broke this bond, but I would probably have a taste of true freedom before I disappeared forever.

I was never sure if I truly wanted to break this bond. It wouldn't be a wise idea, but nobody has ever found out what would happen if this bond should break.

Yet, I still struggled. I thrashed against invisible bonds every moment I got, tried to break free of the bonds by imagining me attacking it with swords, spades, picks, and fire.

I asked everybody I knew of what it felt like to them, and they either gave me half-hearted truths or lies, with the occasional horrified look of shock.

And so I slaved...

I worked all day...

And throughout the night...

So far, there's only been one snowstorm, which I had summoned myself, with a simple spoken command, at my master's insistence. A simple _"/toggledownfall"_ had done the trick.

What kind of world was this anyway? Definitely not the one my master lived in.

Why, it was Minecraft. Of course. I was a Minecraftian, and I would be one forever. My master would be one so long she controlled my actions and played me in the worlds she gave me.

And so, thinking this, I built the first floor for the beginning of my horse prison.

* * *

It was snowing again when I opened my eyes to a nudging command from my master. I'd suddenly lost consciousness of what was going on, and seemingly for a very long time. Still, I felt wide awake and perfectly attuned to my surroundings as my master woke me from it. Perhaps it had something to do with the bond...?

_That doesn't matter,_ I told myself as I got to work.

_Yes, it doesn't_, came a niggling voice in the back of my head.

This voice wasn't the commands given by my master—no, this voice was more akin to my own subconsciousness automatically talking back to me. I'd often used this little voice to keep myself entertained as I slaved to survive for the...fun of my master. Or did I have a mistress? I don't know...

It's now been a couple of weeks.

I'm not sure how long.

I just know that some days I get to rest and I am sometimes taken to another world, where I would actually have to slave away to survive.

This world is better, I told myself. Survival isn't as hard...yet.

I knew the real test was yet to come. And I would likely end up creating my own test...or there might not even be a test, for all I knew...

Soon, I was finished with half of the second floor of the stable, not that the horses would be very pleased with standing on a layer of sky-tinted glass, with no grass beneath their hooves and only a lead keeping them there. I also made a layout plan for my own home, and I had created a large pasture for spawning "wild" horses and a pasture solely for breeding mules.

By now I had several horses, as well as a couple donkeys and mules, all of them saddled and ready to ride should I have to live a survival life.

If I did, I would never survive a creeper attack.


End file.
